Almost, Turpin let it be seen how insulted he felt, but he recovered in time and meekly produced the document -adding, as he handed it over, “Good afternoon to you too, Gunnar. Walked into a hornet's nest. didn't you?”
The crew-boss, looking troubled, didn't answer.
“Right,” the dark-haired man said, handing Turpin's redbook back. “I'm-”
Turpin interrupted, “Yours too, please!”
They locked gazes for a moment. Then the newcomer chuckled and reached towards his hip pocket.
“Yes, by all means, Mr. Turpin. Correct procedure-oh, shit!”
As he touched his pocket, a yammering alarm had gone off.
He did something under his sweat-p-•ched left armpit, and the row stopped, and he finally produc`erl--the redbook. "Sorryl" he muttered with some embarrassmeltt.– "New model alarm. Very efficient. -But in the heat of the"~owent . . ."'"
The words trailed away.
Pleased to have rattled the security man, Turpin opened the redbook. Even before he read the first page, he had a strong idea of what he was going to fiild. Only the handful of key personnel who master-minded security throughout the States had those personalised alarm-systems in their clothes. Nonetheless, what he discovered amazed him. Apart from redbook #000 000 001, which was allotted to Prexy, he had never seen such comprehensive clearances. “Morton Kendall Clarke,” he read. “Substantive bailiff, acting warden, United States Security Force. Seconded Continental Defense HQ.”
Then: five pages of departmental stamps, four of special authorisations enabling him to assume command of Army, Navy, police, and National Guard detachments in an emergency; the usual warning to the civil population that resisting his orders carried a term of not less than one year's jail ….
It was too much. He slapped it shut and gave it back. Clarke tucked it away with a self-conscious grin, as though all too aware of how it must have affected Turpin.
“Rightl” he said, turning to Sandstrom. “Let's have the details again from the top.”
Sandstrom glanced at Turpin, but all the latter could do was nod. You didn't argue with a redbook like Clarke's. The crew-boss began to recite in a manner as impersonal as 6. machine.
"We set down here at fourteen-oh-three. Randomschedule maintenance assignment serial H-506-oblique-828oblique-97. I deployed my crew in the prescribed manner. My aide, Leo Wilkie over there"-he pointed at a frecklefaced young man with a shock of tow-colored hair-"set about deploying the status-check gear for use when the site had been pronounced A-OK. Immediately he fired up the lice-counter, he drew my attention to . . ." He interrupted himself. "Uh-sorry. I mean the live-circuit remotecondition reader." .
“I `know what you rrtean,” Clarke snapped. “Go on.”
"Yes, sure." San dstrom licked his lips. "Well, right away we both reali°za something was wrong. Should have displaying t4v regular pattern bright as day. And the screen stay "dead. I knew there wasn't a fault in the unit because i ame fresh from overhaul this morning."
“So what did you do then?”
“Sounded the recall siren and told the crewmen what I suspected. And– Leo exchanged their routine gear for-uh -the appropriate equipment. In fact, by that time one of the crews, making for the master switching bunker, bad had their own suspicions aroused. The locks on the bunker door were not at their former setting. The door is fourinch sintered-ceramic, a kind of artificial ruby, with . . . but I guess you've been to lots of these sites.”
“Yes,” Clarke said. “So? What next?”
“I ordered a top-to-bottom check of the site. Didn't want to risk the chance that we'd been issued with data that actually related to somewhere else..”
“Has that ever happened to you?”
“No, sir, never. But we were warned in training not to proceed if it did happen.”
"I see. Go on." "Well"-Sandstrom made a helpless gesture-"we satis– fied ourselves the site really was shut down. So I sent out the alarm." _
“When?”
“I logged that, sir,” the freckle-faced Leo broke in. “Fifty-three minutes after we landed.”
“Fifty-three minutesl” Clarke exploded. “Nearly an hourl And now . . .” He checked his watch. “Now it's an hour and a half later stilll What the hell were you doing all that time?”
Listening, Turpin recognised the faint whine what sharpened his voice, and shivered. He knew many people like this, more women than men but plenty of men too, who had let petty power go to their heads and enjoyed stamping on the least suggestion of dilatoriness or incompetence among their subordinates . . . and were always full of excuses for their own shortcomings. He knew, and suspected that Clarke knew too, that checking out a site of this complexity in an hour was fast work. Unfortunately, of. course, when it comes to someone who holds a redbook like Clarke's, .you can't talk about “petty” power . . . -
Sandstrom had stiffened, his mouth tensn"-V though he wanted to snap back but dared not. He said lih..a dead tone, "What I was doing, sir, was acting in accordance with my instruction manual. That's to say, evaluating the status of every potentially deadly item of equipment in the reserved area in order to protect my crewmen from accidental injury. If that's a satisfactory answer, I'll proceed to what I did after sending out the alarm."
“So tell -me,” Clarke said with a scowl.
“I deployed half my men along the beach, under orders to look for any sips of someone coming from the sea who might have sabotaged the installation. And I deployed the other half into the woods and along the track leading to the superway, with the same-”
“Gunnarl” A top-of-the-lungs shout. They spun around. On the dirt road leading towards this spot, a man running and calling and waving, obviously very agitated. “Gunnar, this way, quick!”
And, a couple of minutes later, Turpin, Clarke, Sandstrom, and two members of the maintenance crew were staring down at a footprint on the side of a now-dry puddle-or rather, at half a footprint. Only the sole had left a mark. But that was clear enough for the brand-name to be read.
Well ahead of the scheduled time of Magda's meet with her client, Danty had left the apartment, revelling in the sensation of not being driven to do things whose outcome he could not foresee. He had sometimes tried to describe his-his . . . No, the word didn't exist. Say “premonitions”? That was absolutely wrong. “Previsions”? Wrong again. Fits of clairvoyance, perhaps . . .
Anyway: He had tried to describe them; and failed. They were an abstract, like hunger and thirst, and could only be assuaged h; letting himself drift until he found the proper conr.e of action, and pursued it. Occasionally there wac _ tingling or throbbing at the back of his head.
Today, however, he was luxuriously able to relax. He
yed it so much that for. well over two hours he simply andered about the city, saying hello now and then to his acquaintances. He had very few friends, and no close ones except Magda.
Eventually, however, he spotted a family climbing towards a hoverhalt carrying beach-gear, off for a swim, and decided on the spur of the moment to join them. The shore would be crowded, of course; today was dry and clear and not unbearably hot. Here on the Cowville side the sand was not as carefully cleansed as over by the towers of Lakonia-still, by current standards, New Lake was outstanding. Few people cared to go to the ocean any more, even if they lived within easy reach. The water was too foul. And as for rivers . . . 1
But in New Lake you could swim without risking instant diarrhoea and pharyngitis, and half a mile from shore you could climb on to a bobbing plastic platform and stare at Lakonia and daydream. Even blacks could daydream.
Besides, they could scoff at cocks who were due for overnight agony and lobster-redness in the morning.